Threads of Fate:

“What do we know… of the world and the universe about us? … We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature.”
–H.P. Lovecraft, “From Beyond”

Whatever you did, you must reverse it.

In The Forgotten Age, you journeyed deep into the rainforests of southern Mexico to discover the remains of an ancient Aztec city. During your scientific expedition, you unearthed a priceless artifact, and you then had to decide how to protect it. The consequences of your decisions have now returned to haunt you as your world erupts into chaos. Three difficult tasks fall before you at once and time is of the essence. Which will you pursue?

Choose Your Fate

Following the events of The Forgotten Age, you relinquished control of what may be the discovery of a lifetime. It was difficult choice, but you did what you had to, and now you have returned home, where a peaceful respite is in order. Your relaxation is cut short, however, when a forgotten guardian of the Aztec city appears on your doorstep, declaring that your actions on the expedition have set events into motion that have put the entire Earth in danger. Her claims are baseless and wild, but when strange, unexplainable events begin to occur throughout Arkham, you suspect that her mad claims may be right.

In perhaps the most immersive investigation in Arkham Horror: The Card Game so far, you must weigh your evidence, discuss your choices, and trust your instincts to decide which leads to follow and which to leave unexplored. You must choose between Three Fates (Threads of Fate, 114) as three tasks stand before you and you only have a limited amount of time before the trail goes cold. Where do you search first? Your adventure will be irrevocably shaped by the decisions you make, so choose carefully.

A Terrible Dilemma

Over the course of your investigation, you will weave your way through the stories spun by an incredible twenty-four potential Act cards. The Threads of Fate scenario contains three different Act decks, each constructed separately. Throughout the scenario, all three Act decks will be in play at once and the decision rests with you as to which Acts to pursue and which to ignore. The exact contents of each Act deck will vary depending on who was last in possession of the relic, the past decisions recorded in your campaign log, and even how you choose to pursue the tasks before you.

One of the Act decks that you’ll encounter centers around the choices you made in The Forgotten Age, where you first made your grand discovery. Did you leave the relic with your trusted friend, or did you decide that it belongs in a museum and pass the item off to the Miskatonic Museum for their Eztli exhibit? If you believe Ichtaca, the relic could be used for terrible purposes if left in the wrong hands. Who can you trust? Next, you are faced with another worrying task where life and death may hang in the balance. One of your expedition companions has gone missing and you suspect foul play. Do you go to the police or do you believe that you will have a better chance of finding them on your own?

Among these other endeavors remains the question of what to do with your uninvited house guest. Do you trust Ichtaca? Should you continue to push her for answers about the relic and the people who pursue it, and would you believe her if she told you? You could bring her into the fold of your investigation, or leave her to her own devices and trail her to see where she goes. She could lead you to the answers you seek, but if you are wrong, you will lose precious time and perhaps a potential ally. Can you take that risk?

Choice and Consequence

As the first Mythos Pack in The Forgotten Age cycle, Threads of Fate offers you several new player cards that will shape the rest of your campaign. Arcane Research (Threads of Fate, 109) bears the Permanent keyword, staying with you for the entirety of your campaign once you have purchased it. But all power comes with a price. When you purchase Arcane Research, you immediately suffer one mental trauma as you attempt to quickly learn all you can about the mythos to survive the trials ahead. Still, once you have conducted your research you gain a lasting benefit—after each scenario, you may reduce the experience cost of the first Spell card you upgrade before the next scenario by one.

Beyond the realm of Mystics, Seekers may test their ability to make a Shrewd Analysis (Threads of Fate, 106) to permanently alter their campaign experience as well. Once you have made a Shrewd Analysis in your investigation, any time you upgrade a card that is either Unidentified or Untranslated, you may upgrade a second copy of that card at no experience cost. If you choose this path, however, the two upgraded versions are chosen at random from among the eligible options. You may be able to glean some information about the civilizations of ages past, but their language, like their lives, is strange. There is no telling what your investigation into the truth will uncover.

The Boundary Beyond:

I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.
–H.P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep”

In The Forgotten Age, you embarked on a scientific expedition to discover ancient Aztec ruins in the rainforests of southern Mexico and returned home with a priceless artifact that you had to protect in the best way you knew how. Then, in Threads of Fate, your world fell into chaos as you were confronted with a series of objectives as the sands of the hourglass were quickly falling away. Now you seek to undo your mistakes, but the choices and sacrifices that you have made to reach this point will inevitably shape your mission moving forward. That is, unless time is not as stable as you believe.

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce The Boundary Beyond, the second Mythos Pack in The Forgotten Agecycle for Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Digging Up the Past

Arkham Horror: The Card Game has always blurred the line between madness and reality, and now in The Boundary Beyond, the distinctions between the past, present, and future start to become hazy. Following the events of Threads of Fate, you are driven from Arkham to Mexico City to find answers about an enigmatic relic and those who pursue it. After a seemingly endless string of failures, it appears the trail has gone cold. But on the very day you are ready to return home, something is wrong—the city has altered. Silver lightning crackles in the sky overhead, and the earth rumbles below your feet. Monstrous entities float just below the clouds and the architecture looks more like something out of a history book than modern Mexico.

Despite the altered landscape, it does not appear that you have traveled to the past. Rather, it is more like all of time is happening at once and the city is continuing to evolve before your eyes. During your investigation in The Boundary Beyond, you may be instructed to place new locations over existing ones. This is not to say that you have moved, but rather that the places themselves have changed as the fabric of time begins to unravel. When a location changes, all tokens, attachments, investigators, and enemies at the original location are considered to be at the new location when it is replaced. For example, if you are at the modern Metropolitan Cathedral (The Boundary Beyond, 169), you may choose to use the Explore action, first introduced in The Forgotten Age deluxe expansion, to uncover the secrets hidden within its walls. When you draw from the exploration deck, you discover the Temples of Tenochtitlán (The Boundary Beyond, 177). This Ancient location has a matching connection symbol in the upper left corner, marking that the Temples of Tenochtitlán replace the Metropolitan Cathedral and you are now considered to be at the Temples. You have not fallen through time, time has shifted around you.

As the thread pulls, the weave unravels. Throughout The Boundary Beyond, you may have increasing reasons to panic as you encounter Timeline Destabilization (The Boundary Beyond, 190). When this dreaded Hex is revealed, you must test your willpower. In the modern era, this test would not cause much worry. However, the test gains difficulty for each Ancient location in play and if you fail, you suffer one damage and one horror, and you must shuffle Timeline Destabilization back into the exploration deck as the clock appears to jump forwards and back of its own volition.

Remember Who You Are

To help you survive in this ever-shifting landscape, the player cards of The Boundary Beyond focus on helping you gain skill by embracing the nature of your faction. Mystics may learn how to perform a Ritual to Recall the Future (The Boundary Beyond, 158). While you possess this asset, you can put your foresight to the test by naming a chaos token during a skill test. If you successfully peer through the boundary and your named token is revealed, you may then exhaust Recall the Future to raise your skill for the test. Meanwhile, if you play as a confident Quick Study (The Boundary Beyond, 154), you may simply choose to place one of your clues on your location and exhaust Quick Study to significantly raise your skill for a test, knowing that you may easily regain this clue at a later time.

Even with these increased abilities, the more bookish investigators may find need for some added muscle. In times of crisis, a Bold Guardian may wish to defend their fellow investigators and Take the Initiative (TheBoundary Beyond, 150) to spring into action. This skill rewards you for taking your actions early with the ability to commit three wild skill icons to one of your tests. However, the longer you wait to use this card, the weaker it becomes. Take the Initiative loses a wild icon for each action taken by any investigator, so if even one of your companions has completed their full turn, the card loses its value. With the fate of the past, present, and future at risk, this is no time to be timid.

The Heart of the Elders:

“A viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man should see, and no man else had ever dared to see.”
–H.P. Lovecraft, “The Nameless City”

After completing a scientific expedition in the rainforests of southern Mexico, you returned home only to discover that you had done more harm than good. Now, you must return to some of the darkest corners of the Earth to undo your mistake. Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Heart of the Elders, the third Mythos pack in The Forgotten Age cycle for Arkham Horror: The Card Game!

Heart of the Elders invites you to take your campaigns deeper into the jungle with Scenarios V-A and V-B of The Forgotten Age campaign. With the sixty cards within this Mythos Pack, you’ll find new players card to enhance your investigator decks and dangerous new scenarios to test your resolve.

The Cavern’s Maw

Following the events of The Boundary Beyond, you leave the safety of civilization behind and journey deep into the rainforest. Surrounded by uncharted wilderness, you can feel the glare of countless eyes watching you from beneath the shadows of the trees. It’s almost as if the forest itself does not want you to reach your destination. After days of struggle, you uncover the entrance of an enormous cave, but something is not quite right. Six large pillars stand near the mouth of the cavern, covered in strange carvings that you cannot understand, but something scratching at the edge of your consciousness tells you that you’ve seen them before.

Maybe they are some form of language, or a lock system? If you make one mistake now, it could leave you buried alive in the cave, but how much time can you afford to spend investigating the pillars as your provisions run low? Starvation will kill you just as surely as a cave-in.

You must make your decision quickly, for the threats of the jungle continue to encroach upon your expedition camp. The strange Flora of this region are among the deadliest in the world. Apex Strangleweed (Heart of the Elders, 219) will choke the life from you if you cannot cut yourself free, and even the most innocuous plant can prove lethal. Any investigator who finds themselves trapped in a location covered with Poisonous Spores (Heart of the Elders, 216) becomes Poisoned (The Forgotten Age, 102); and any who already bear this permanent weakness begin to hallucinate, suffering two horror.

Should you survive the treacheries of the jungle itself, even more dangers await you underground. Heart of the Eldersis the first Mythos Pack in Arkham Horror: The Card Game to feature a two-part scenario, bringing your investigation from the jungle to the cavern. You will have to overcome both the horrors of the jungle in Scenario V-A as well as the terrors of the cavern beneath in Scenario V-B. What awaits you beneath the shell of the Earth, where sunlight has not touched for years? The investigation is yours, and the only way to find out is to continue onward.

Against All Odds

In addition to the next chapters of The Forgotten Age cycle, Heart of the Elders provides you with an assortment of new player cards to help move your expedition forward. If you wish to survive your extended stay far from civilization, you will need to fill your ranks with skilled allies and experts in their fields. If you are playing as a Rogue, you can hire archaeologist Lola Santiago (Heart of the Elders, 196) to help you dig up clues. In addition to increasing both your intellect and your agility, you may spend resources to discover a clue at your location. Meanwhile, Mystics may bring Olive McBride (Heart of the Elders, 197) into the fold of the investigation, using her skills to manipulate the chaos bag. If you exhaust this Witch when you would reveal a chaos token, you can instead reveal three chaos tokens and select two of them to resolve. It might backfire horribly, but without risk, there can be no reward.

Allies can give you the edge as you journey into the jungle, but when you don’t know who to trust, the only person you can rely on is yourself. With enough spirit and will to survive, you just might complete this mission Against All Odds (Heart of the Elders, 202). Whenever you’re performing a skill test with a difficulty higher than your base skill, you can play this event to reveal additional chaos tokens and choose one of them to resolve. Of course, this event is useful whenever you feel overmatched, but it can be downright essential for the game’s newest investigator, Calvin Wright (The Forgotten Age, 5). While his willpower and lore increase for each horror on him, and his combat and agility increase for each damage, the base value of each of Calvin’s skills is zero. For example, let’s say that Calvin has suffered two damage during a scenario when he finds himself locked in a fight with an Apex Strangleweed. Calvin’s combat value is two, one less than the deadly Flora. However, since the base combat value printed on Calvin’s investigator card is zero, when he plays Against All Odds, he draws a total of three tokens from the chaos bag, greatly increasing his chances of victory before he even commits any cards! When a single test could mean the difference between life and death, this card may be the answer to your prayers.